Template:Globalize/US

American exceptionalism is a theory that the United States occupies a special role among the nations of the world in terms of its national ethos, political and religious institutions, and its being built by immigrants. The roots of the position have been dated back to 1630 with John Winthrop's "City Upon a Hill"^[1], although some scholars attribute it to a passage of Alexis de Tocqueville,^[2] who argued that the United States held a special place among nations, because it was the first working representative democracy.

Belief in American exceptionalism is more characteristic of conservatives than liberals. Howard Zinn and Godfrey Hodgson^[3] said that it is based on a myth, and that "there is a growing refusal to accept" the idea of exceptionalism both nationally and internationally.^[4] By contrast, conservative leader Mike Huckabee argues that "to deny American exceptionalism is in essence to deny the heart and soul of this nation."^[5]

Overview

Historian Dorothy Ross discussed three currents in American exceptionalism:

1. Protestant American Christians believed American progress would lead to the Christian Millenium."^[6].
2. American writers also linked their history to the development of liberty in Anglo Saxon England, even back to the traditions of the Teutonic tribes that conquered the western Roman empire^[6].
3. Other American writers looked to the "millenial newness" of America, seeing the mass of "virgin land" promised an escape from the decay that befell earlier republics^[6].

The French writer Alexis de Tocqueville first wrote about it in his 1831 work Democracy in America:^[7]

The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origin, their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts, the proximity of Europe, which allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism, a thousand special causes, of which I have only been able to point out the most important, have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects. His passions, his wants, his education, and everything about him seem to unite in drawing the native of the United States earthward; his religion alone bids him turn, from time to time, a transient and distracted glance to heaven. Let us cease, then, to view all democratic nations under the example of the American people.^[8]

American exceptionalism is closely tied to the idea of Manifest Destiny,^[9] a term used by Jacksonian Democrats in the 1840s to promote the acquisition of much of what is now the Western United States (the Oregon Territory, the Texas Annexation, the Gadsden Purchase, and the Mexican Cession).

A key theme is the claim that the United States and its people differ from other nations, at least on a historical basis, as an association of people who came from numerous places throughout the world but who hold a common bond in standing for certain self-evident truths, like freedom, inalienable natural and human rights, democracy, republicanism, the rule of law, civil liberty, civic virtue, the common good, fair play, private property, and Constitutional government^{[citation needed]}.

Critics argue that it is equivalent to jingoism and nationalist propaganda.^[10][11] In their arguments, they often compare the US to other countries that have claimed an exceptional nature or destiny. Examples in more recent times include the UK at the height of the British Empire, as well the USSR, France and Nazi Germany; while many historic empires such as Ancient Rome, China, the Spanish Empire and a wide range of minor kingdoms and tribes have also embraced exceptionalism. In each case, a basis was presented^{[citation needed]} as to why the country was exceptional compared to all other countries, drawing upon circumstance, cultural background and mythos, and self-perceived national aims^{[citation needed]}.

Causes in their historical context

Scholars have explored possible origins of American exceptionalism.

Lack of feudalism

Many scholars adopted a model of American exceptionalism developed by Harvard political scientist Louis Hartz. In The Liberal Tradition in America (1955), Hartz argued that the American political tradition lacked the left-wing/socialist and right-wing/aristocratic elements that dominated in most other lands because colonial America lacked any feudal traditions, such as established churches, landed estates and an inherited nobility^[12]. The "liberal consensus" school, typified by David Potter, Daniel Boorstin and Richard Hofstadter followed Hartz in emphasizing that political conflicts in American history remained within the tight boundaries of a liberal consensus regarding private property, individual rights, and representative government. The national government that emerged was far less centralized or nationalized as European counterparts^[13].

Puritan roots

Many Puritans with Arminian leanings embraced a middle ground between strict Calvinist predestination and a less restricting theology of Divine Providence. They believed God had made a covenant with their people and had chosen them to lead the other nations of the Earth. One Puritan leader, John Winthrop, metaphorically expressed this idea as a "City upon a Hill" – that the Puritan community of New England should serve as a model community for the rest of the world.^[14] This metaphor is often used by proponents of exceptionalism. The Puritans' deep moralistic values remained part of the national identity of the United States for centuries, remaining influential to the present day. Parts of American exceptionalism can be traced to American Puritan roots.^[15]

American Revolution and Republicanism

The ideas that created the American Revolution were derived from a tradition of republicanism that had been repudiated by the British mainstream. Thomas Paine's Common Sense for the first time expressed the belief that America was not just an extension of Europe but a new land, a country of nearly unlimited potential and opportunity that had outgrown the British mother country.^[16] These sentiments laid the intellectual foundations for the Revolutionary concept of American exceptionalism and were closely tied to republicanism, the belief that sovereignty belonged to the people, not to a hereditary ruling class.^[17]

Alexis de Tocqueville stressed the advanced nature of democracy in America, arguing that it infused every aspect of society and culture, at a time (1830s) when democracy was not in fashion anywhere else.^[18]

Slavery

The United States was the only republic with slavery, and indeed, the only rich modern nation that had slavery. The European powers, such as Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal had slavery in their overseas colonies, but it was not established in the Metropole after about 1790. It was also the only major nation in which slavery caused a large-scale civil war, which destroyed slavery by violence.^[19]

Immigration

One of Alexis de Toqueville's original arguments for American exceptionalism still stands; America remains particularly attractive to immigrants because of its perceived economic and political opportunities. Since its founding, many immigrants, such as Alexander Hamilton, John Jacob Astor, Andrew Carnegie, Charlie Chaplin, Bob Hope, Saul Bellow, Henry Kissinger, and Arnold Schwarzenegger have risen to the top in business, media and politics, not to mention the success of their children, such as Colin Powell and Barack Obama. The "American Dream" describes the perceived abundance of opportunities in the American system.

The United States has the largest population of immigrants in the world – over 38.5 million people living in the United States are first-generation immigrants.^[20] On an annual basis, the United States naturalizes approximately 898,000 immigrants as new citizens, the most of any country in the world.^[21] From 1960 to 2005, the United States was ranked first in the world for every five year period but one for the total number of immigrants admitted – overall, since 1995, the United States has admitted over 1 million immigrants per year.^[22] Of the top ten countries accepting resettled refugees in 2006, the United States accepted more than twice as many as the next nine countries combined, approximately 50,000 refugees; in addition, on average, over 100,000 refugees per year were resettled annually between 1990 and 2000; further, over 85,000 asylum seekers annually come to the United States in search of sanctuary, of which approximately 45% are successful in obtaining.

Critics point out that America is now hardly unique in its appeal to immigrants, and that many countries like Australia, Canada and New Zealand are at least as popular and welcoming to immigrants.^[23]

American Communism

In 1927 Jay Lovestone, leader of the Communist Party in America, defined American exceptionalism as the increasing strength of American capitalism, a strength which he said prevented Communist revolution.^[24] In 1929, Soviet Dictator Joseph Stalin, unwilling to believe that America was so resistant to revolution, called Lovestone's ideas "the heresy of American exceptionalism."^[25] In the 1930s, academicians in the U.S. redefined American exceptionalism as befitting a nation that was to lead the world, with the U.S. to serve the older European societies as an example of a liberated future free from Marxism and socialism.^[25] More recently, socialists and other writers have tried to discover or describe this exceptionalism of the U.S. within and outside its borders.^[26]

Cold War

American exceptionalism became evident during the Cold War when the American Way of Life engaged in a battle against totalitarianism, led by the Soviet Union. These attributions made use of the residual sentiment that had originally formed to differentiate the United States from the 19th century European powers and had been applied multiple times in multiple contexts before it was used to distinguish democracies (with the United States primus inter pares of the democracies) from authoritarian and totalitarian dictatorship.

Aspects of arguments

Republican ethos and ideas about nationhood

Proponents of American exceptionalism argue that the United States is exceptional in that it was founded on a set of republican ideals, rather than on a common heritage, ethnicity, or ruling elite. In the formulation of President Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address, America is a nation "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal". In this view, America is inextricably connected with liberty and equality.

The United States' policies have been characterized since their inception by a system of federalism and checks and balances, which were designed to prevent any person, faction, region, or government organ from becoming too powerful. Some Proponents of the theory of American exceptionalism argue that this system and the accompanying distrust of concentrated power prevent the United States from suffering a "tyranny of the majority", are preservative a free republican democrat, and also that it allows citizens to live in a locality whose laws reflect that citizen's values. A consequence of this political system is that laws can vary greatly across the country. Critics of American exceptionalism maintain that this system merely replaces the power of the national majority over states with power by the states over local entities. On balance, the American political system arguably allows more local dominance but prevents more national dominance than does a more unitary system.

Frontier spirit

Proponents of American exceptionalism often claim that the "American spirit" or the "American identity" was created at the frontier (following Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis), where rugged and untamed conditions gave birth to American national vitality. However, this 'frontier spirit' was not unique to the United States – other nations such as New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina and Australia had long frontiers that were similarly settled by pioneers, shaping their national psyches. In fact, all of the British Imperial domains involved pioneering work. Although each nation had slightly different frontier experiences (for example, in Australia "mateship" and working together was valued more than individualism was in the United States), the characteristics arising from British attempting to "tame" a wild and often hostile landscape against the will of the original population remained common to many such nations. Of course, at the limit, all of mankind has been involved, at one time or another, in extending the boundaries of their territory.

Mobility

For most of its history, especially from the mid-19th to early 20th centuries, the United States has been known as the "land of opportunity", and in this sense, it prided and promoted itself on providing individuals with the opportunity to escape from the contexts of their class and family background. Examples of this social mobility include:

• Occupational – children could easily choose careers which were not based upon their parents' choices.
• Physical – that geographical location was not seen as static, and citizens often relocated freely over long distances without barrier.
• Status – As in most countries, family standing and riches were often a means to remain in a higher social circle. America was notably unusual due to an accepted wisdom that anyone – from impoverished immigrants upwards – who worked hard, could aspire to similar standing, regardless of circumstances of birth. This aspiration is commonly called living the American dream. Birth circumstances were not taken as a social barrier to the upper echelons or to high political status in American culture. This stood in contrast to other countries where many higher offices were socially determined, and usually hard to enter without being born into the suitable social group.

However, social mobility in the US is also now significantly lower than in a number of European Union countries. American men born into the lowest income quintile are much more likely to stay there compared to similar men in the Nordic countries or the United Kingdom.^[27]

American Revolution

The American Revolutionary War is the claimed ideological territory of "exceptionalists". The intellectuals of the Revolution, such as Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, arguably shaped America into a nation fundamentally different from its European ancestry, creating modern constitutional republicanism, with a limit on ecclesiastical powers. Others counter that there is nothing unique about the revolution – the English "Glorious Revolution" was nearly a century prior to the American Revolution and led to constitutional monarchy. The French Revolution also led to a form of modern democracy and has been credited as the process that forged most contemporary ideals of government and democracy.

Opposing viewpoints

During the George W. Bush administration, the term was somewhat abstracted from its historical context^{[citation needed]}. Proponents and opponents alike began using it to describe a phenomenon wherein certain political interests view the United States as being "above" or an "exception" to the law, specifically the Law of Nations.^[28] (This phenomenon is less concerned with justifying American uniqueness than with asserting its immunity to international law.) This new use of the term has served to confuse the topic and muddy the waters, since its unilateralist emphasis and ahistorical orientation diverge somewhat from older uses of the term. A certain number of those who subscribe to "old-style" or "traditional American exceptionalism" the idea that America is a more nearly exceptional nation than are others, that it differs qualitatively from the rest of the world and has a special role to play in world history – also agree that the United States is and ought to be fully subject to and bound by the public international law. Indeed, recent research shows that "there is some indication for American exceptionalism among the [U.S.] public, but very little evidence of unilateral attitudes."^[29]

In April 2009, President Barack Obama responded to a journalist's question in Strasbourg with the statement, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."^[30]

Ignorance of aspects

Critics on the left, such as Howard Zinn in A People's History of the United States (1980 and later editions) have argued that American history is so morally flawed that it cannot be an exemplar of virtue^[31].

American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr argued that the automatic assumption that America acts for the good will bring about moral corruption. After the second world war, Niebuhr repeated his claim by focusing on the immoral nature of the atomic bomb and the irony that such an immoral weapon was used by a nation claiming the moral high ground over communism.^[32]

Critics say that for every one feature of America, some other country shares it. Proponents reply that the historical uniqueness of the United States is the result of a combination of many factors and not captured by particular aspects of the national character. Opponents, however, argue that the national character-resulting from all of its components-of each and every nation on earth is unique.

Canadian and American politics and economies compared explores this issue by contrast to the most similar nation, on the same continent, with a quite different history.

Double standards

U.S. historians like Thomas Bender "try and put an end to the recent revival of American exceptionalism, a defect he esteems to be inherited from the Cold War".^[33] Gary W. Reichard and Ted Dickson argue "how the development of the United States has always depended on its transactions with other nations for commodities, cultural values and populations".^[34] Roger Cohen asks, "How exceptional can you be when every major problem you face, from terrorism to nuclear proliferation to gas prices, requires joint action?"^[35] Harold Koh distinguishes "distinctive rights, different labels, the 'flying buttress' mentality, and double standards. (...) [T]he fourth face – double standards – presents the most dangerous and destructive form of American exceptionalism."^[36] Godfrey Hodgson also concludes that "the US national myth is dangerous."^[37] Samantha Power asserts that "we're neither the shining example, nor even competent meddlers. It's going to take a generation or so to reclaim American exceptionalism."^[38]

The Americanist heresy

Pope Leo XIII, who denounced what he deemed to be the heresy of americanism in the encyclical Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae,^[39] was probably (?) referring to American exceptionalism in the ecclesiastical domain, when it is specifically applied to the teachings of Christianity and the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church.^[40] At the end of the 19th century, there was definitely a tendency among the Roman Catholic clergy in the United States to view American society as inherently different from other Christian nations and societies, and to argue that the entire understanding of Church doctrine had to be redrawn^{[citation needed]} in order to meet the requirements of what is known as the American experience, which supposedly included greater individualism, civil rights, the inheritance of the American revolution, Anglo-Saxon cultural traditions, economic liberalism, political reformism and egalitarianism, and Church-State separation.

Pre-emptive declinism

New York Times critic Nicolai Ouroussoff calls America "an empire enthralled with its own power and unaware that it is fading."^[41] Former Clinton administration official Charles Kupchan concludes that "American primacy is already past its peak."^[42] According to Joseph Nye, who served under Presidents Carter and Clinton, America's "soft power – its ability to attract others by the legitimacy of U.S. policies and the values that underlie them – is in decline."^[42]

Ivan Eland of the Independent Institute warns that America's military "overextension could hasten the decline of the United States as a superpower."^[43]

Matthew Parris of the London Sunday Times reports that the United States is "overstretched," romantically recalling the Kennedy presidency, when "America had the best arguments" and could use moral persuasion rather than force to have its way in the world. From his vantage point in Shanghai, the International Herald Tribune's Howard French worries about "the declining moral influence of the United States" over an emergent China.^[44]

CEPA Director of Research Wess Mitchell says: "With a declining United States, struggling Europe, and resurgent Russia, the unfolding Euro-Atlantic power triangle is a microcosm of the multipolar order ahead."^[45]

In his book, '"The Post-American World", Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria refers to a "Post-American world" that he says, "is not about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else."^[46]

In 2004, Pat Buchanan lamented "the decline and fall of the greatest industrial republic the world had ever seen." In 2005, The Guardian's Polly Toynbee concluded that Hurricane Katrina exposed "a hollow superpower". In 2007, Pierre Hassner of the Paris-based National Foundation for Political Science declared, "It will not be the New American Century."^[47] In 1988, Flora Lewis sighed that "Talk of U.S. decline is real in the sense that the U.S. can no longer pull all the levers of command or pay all the bills." Even in trying to deflect the declinists, James Schlesinger conceded in 1988 that the U.S. was "no longer economically the preponderant power... no longer militarily the dominant power... no longer can achieve more or less whatever it desires." "The signs of decline are evident to those who care to see them," declared Peter Passell in 1990, noting that the U.S. had lost its competitive edge and was losing its battle with the Japanese juggernaut. "Europeans and Asians," wrote Anthony Lewis in 1990, "are already finding confirmation of their suspicion that the United States is in decline." Citing America's dependence on foreign sources for energy and "crucial weaknesses" in the military, Tom Wicker concluded "that maintaining superpower status is becoming more difficult – nearly impossible – for the United States."^[44]

Similarities between the United States and Europe

In December 2009, historian Peter Baldwin published a book arguing that, despite widespread comparisons between the 'American way of life' and the 'European social model', America and Europe are actually very similar on a number of social and economic indices. Baldwin claimed that the black underclass accounts for many of those few areas where a stark difference exists between the US and Europe, such as homicide and child poverty.^[48] However, critics alleged that some of Baldwin's evidence actually supports the stereotype of a distinctive American model: a free-market system with little labour protection, an adversarial legal system, high murder rates, high rates of gun ownership, a large prison population, inequitable and expensive health care, and relatively widespread poverty.^[49]

Unsustainable fiscal path

Both from a budget deficit and trade deficit standpoint, it is argued that the U.S. is unwilling to live within its means. For example, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Federal Government's auditor, argues that the U.S. is on a fiscally "unsustainable" path and that politicians and the electorate have been unwilling to change this path.^[50] The 2010 U.S. budget indicates annual debt increases of nearly $1 trillion annually through 2019, with an unprecedented $1.0 trillion debt increase in 2009. By 2019 the U.S. national debt is projected to be $18.4 trillion.^[51] Further, the subprime mortgage crisis has significantly increased the financial burden on the U.S. government, with over $10 trillion in commitments or guarantees and $2.6 trillion in investments or expenditures as of May 2009, only some of which are included in the budget document.^[52] The U.S. also has a large trade deficit, meaning imports exceed exports. Financing these deficits requires the USA to borrow large sums from abroad, much of it from countries running trade surpluses, mainly the emerging economies in Asia and oil-exporting nations. The balance of payments identity requires that a country (such as the USA) running a current account deficit also have a capital account (investment) surplus of the same amount. In 2005, Ben Bernanke addressed the implications of the USA's high and rising current account (trade) deficit, resulting from USA imports exceeding its exports. Between 1996 and 2004, the USA current account deficit increased by $650 billion, from 1.5% to 5.8% of GDP.^[53]

See also

Notes

Further reading

• Bender, Thomas (2006). A Nation Among Nations: America's Place in World History. Hill & Wang. ISBN 0809095270.
• Blair, John (2001). Against American Exceptionalism: Post-Colonial Perspectives On Irish Immigration. Manuscript unpublished.
• Dworkin, Ronald W. (1996). The Rise of the Imperial Self. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 0-8476-8219-6.
• Madsen, Deborah L. (1998). American Exceptionalism. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 1-57806-108-3.
• Glickstein, Jonathan A. American Exceptionalism, American Anxiety: Wages, Competition, and Degraded Labor In The Antebellum United States (2002)
• Ferrie, Joseph P. The End of American Exceptionalism: Mobility in the US Since 1850, Journal of Economic Perspectives (Summer, 2005)
• Hellerman, Steven L. and Andrei S. Markovits (2001). Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-07447-X. online version
• Ignatieff, Michael ed. (2005). American Exceptionalism and Human Rights. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-11647-4. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
• Kagan, Robert (2003). Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order. Knopf. ISBN 1-4000-4093-0.
• Lipset, Seymour Martin (1997). American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31614-9.
• Lipset, Seymour Martin. "The First New Nation." Basic Books, 1955.
• Lipset, Seymour Martin. "Still the Exceptional Nation?." The Wilson Quarterly. 24#1 (2000) pp 31+ online version
• Lloyd, Brian. Left Out: Pragmatism, Exceptionalism, and the Poverty of American Marxism, 1890–1922. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
• Noble, David (2002). Death of a Nation: American Culture and the End of Exceptionalism. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0816640807, 9780816640805. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
• Ross, Dorothy. Origins of American Social Science. Cambridge University Press, 1991.
• Ross, Dorothy. "American Exceptionalism" in A Companion to American Thought. Richard W. Fox and James T. Kloppenberg, eds. London: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1995: 22–23.
• Shafer, Byron E. Is America Different?: A New Look at American Exceptionalism (1991)
• Schuck, Peter H., Wilson, James Q., Eds. Understanding America: The Anatomy of an Exceptional Nation, 704pp, 2008, ISBN 978-1-58648-561-0
• Rick Tilman. "Thorstein Veblen's Views on American 'Exceptionalism': An Interpretation." Journal of Economic Issues. 39#1 2005. pp 177+. online version
• Turner, Frederick Jackson Richard W. Etulain ed. (1999). The Significance of the Frontier in American History, in Does The Frontier Experience Make America Exceptional?. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
• Voss, Kim. The Making of American Exceptionalism: The Knights of Labor and Class Formation in the Nineteenth Century (1993) online version
• Wilentz, Sean. Against Exceptionalism: Class Consciousness and the American Labor Movement, 1790–1820, 26 Int'l Lab. & Working Class History 1 (1984)
• Wrobel, David M. (1996). The End Of American Exceptionalism: Frontier Anxiety From The Old West To The New Deal. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 0-7006-0561-4.
• Marc Dollinger, "American Jewish Liberalism Revisited: Two Perspectives Exceptionalism and Jewish Liberalism." American Jewish History v 30#2 2002. pp 161+. online at Questia

External links

• How the World Sees America – Washington Post Feature

• "The American Creed: Does It Matter? Should It Change?"
• The right to be different Debate between Grover Norquist and Will Hutton